Reformed Gothic Armchair

John Pollard Seddon, great-grandson of the furniture maker George Seddon, was principally an ecclesiastical architect of the Gothic revival, but as was customary of the time he also designed furniture. He collaborated with Pre-Raphaelites on a variety of works in the 1850s and 1860s through their association to his older brother, the landscape painter Thomas Seddon.
The original model of the present chair was exhibited in the 'Medieval Court' at the 1862 London International Exhibition with the firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (see Cooper, p. 104, fig. 221). A variant of this lot, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the medieval style, as well as a plain version in walnut were acquired by the artist Mules Birket Foster for his house, The Hill, at Witley in Surrey, which was an early interior decoration commission for Morris & Co. (see Cooper, p. 104, figs. 220, 224). A related example with a different design for the chairback is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, circa 1862 (accession no. W.9-2021).

For a description of the original Seddon drawing the V&A Museum, see
M. Darby, John Pollard Seddon, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 1983, pg. 109.

For related examples:
J. Cooper, Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors, London, 1987, p. 104, nos. 220 and 221 and p. 105, no. 227.
C. Gere & M. Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design from Pugin to Mackintosh, London, 1993, p. 84, pl. 83.